


The "I" in Team is Implied

by hurinhouse



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 05:14:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13710591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hurinhouse/pseuds/hurinhouse
Summary: Locked in an evil professor's lab, some of the White Collar team work together for their freedom.  Others?  Well...





	The "I" in Team is Implied

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Theatregirl7299](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theatregirl7299/gifts).



> For Theatregirl7299's birthday. I planned to write your otp, but it somehow veered off into something not even remotely like it.

"Diana, is that... kiwi?"

"Caffrey, I swear to God. Stop smelling my hair."

"A little impossible right now. Besides, I need something to distract me from your knee-"

"Boss! Where is that damned key?"

Diana shifts again, coming close to rendering Neal infertile. When they'd chained the two of them up, it would have been nice if it hadn't have been beneath the bunk.

"We're trying, Diana." Peter's voice sounds like he's in a faraway tunnel.

"Peter, does this bookshelf look out of place to you?"

"Good eye, Jones. See if that lever- " A click strikes through the air.

"It works!"

"There'd better be a key in there."

"Yep. Diana, try to shift off of Neal so I can reach the lock."

She doesn't waste any time and she's not gentle. "Ow. Diana, watch the goods."

"The 'goods', Caffrey? That's rich."

"You know, I didn't even want to come on this case today."

"Cowboy up. Part of the job."

"Lying on a disgusting floor chained under a bunk to someone who regularly threatens to kill me is not part of my job description."

"There you go." The chains fall away, Diana pushing against Neal's chest as she twists away, squeezing out from under the bunk.

"Finally. It's been a half hour!" 

"Actually, it's been exactly twelve minutes."

"I will shoot you."

"Neal, get out from under there and help us get out of this lab before Simmons gets back."

"Be right there." There's a conduit running along the wall beneath the bunk. They're in a very old building and the material looks pretty weak. Neal tilts his head back to see the starting place, then forward to where the pipe disappears behind the frame.

"Peter, if we line up these coordinates with this map Neal found while he was snoozing under the bunk... "

"Hey, I was trapped!" Neal calls out, only half listening. He slides out from under the frame - his shirt is ruined now anyway - and checks along the baseboard for the conduit's re-emergence. 

"Yeah, that might help. I'll work on this chemical chart."

"Already on it, Boss. Don't nitric acid and water dissolve metal?"

"If they hadn't have taken our phones, I could tell you." 

Neal spots the tube again a few feet from the door. Running his fingers along the outer shell, he feels a thin section with cracks and rubs his thumb over it a couple of times before glancing around the lab for some kind of tool to work with. Tongs, clipboards, cylinders...

"Neal, what are you doing?"

"Checking out a lead." 

"On the floor?"

"Our freedom could come from anywhere, Peter."

"Peter, can you hold this light up so I can see the map?"

"Sure."

Ah, there's a metal funnel among the beakers on the table. Everyone else is too focused on maps or codes or combinations to notice him. He slides the funnel off of the table and drops back down to the floor, scraping away at the tube.

"Boss, check out the serial numbers on these charts."

"What about them?"

"I think they correspond with the code on the door's lock."

"Try it."

It doesn't take much to break open the worn tube. But the wires are old; old enough to dampen any confidence Neal had in knowing the correct colors.

"Ugh. These numbers didn't work either!"

"Calm down, Diana. We're not going to get out of here if we panic."

"I'm not panicked. We just need to get out."

Neal weighs electric shock against Diana's temper. Possible death on one hand, definite broken bones on the other.

Eeny meeny has always been pretty lucky in the past. Neal grabs the red and the black. He watches the wires connect as a tingle shoots through his hands, up his arms and through his torso. All of his muscles contract as he hears the locking mechanism shift on the door above him. 

"What the hell? Neal?"

As he drops to the floor, he passes through the scent of burning flesh.

"Caffrey?"

"Hey, he got the door open!"

Peter kneels down into Neal's vision, hands on his chest and neck.

"I'm breathing, no reason to check my pulse." His shaky stilted voice nullifies his assurances.

"What were you doing?" Clinton and Diana hover behind Peter.

"Getting us out of here."

"You people alright in there?" A man peers in through the cracked door, pushing it against Neal's leg. Neal thinks his name is Troy.

"We've got a man down in here." Peter can be so dramatic.

Troy barks into a radio, "Maggie, call an ambulance."

Neal tries to sit up but Peter's determined. "I'm fine."

"Just stay down, Neal."

"Yeah, I hope so 'cause you guys totally cheated. Are you smoking in there?" 

"How did we cheat?" Jones' voice has an edge of challenge to it that Neal rarely hears in defense of himself.

"I don't know but- " Troy wedges his face against the door frame, eyes darting all over the room.

Neal moves his elbow to cover the exposed conduit but Diana's leg is already there. Not quickly enough for Troy, though.

"- You stripped our wiring!"

"Hey this conduit was cracked and exposed. I was looking for a clue and it shocked me."

Diana picks up the thread, "What kind of business are you running here? He could have been killed."

_Like she wouldn't have been thrilled._

"You F.B.I. are never coming back here. Every year _something_ happens with you people." Troy trails off, stalking back to the office, hands thrown in the air.

"Thanks a lot, Caffrey." Diana steps over him, paces the room while Peter and Jones help Neal sit against the wall.

"Neal, did you really just hotwire a door lock?"

"You were all wasting time on those puzzles."

"That's what the Escape Room is about, Neal!" Jones takes a Peter Stance with hands on his hips.

"No," Peter corrects. "It's about teamwork. You know, the kind where we all work together."

"I tend to think more clearly inside my own head."

"A lot of good that does the rest of us," Diana calls out as she passes.

Appealing to Jones' and Peter's sense of fairness, "We got stuck with Professor Simmons' evil lab and Ruiz got the easy room." He feels himself shrug. "Diana was so determined to beat his time... "

Diana spins around, glaring at him, "Don't you make this about-... " 

When she catches sight of him this time her tirade halts. Neal's not sure what she sees in his face but it's not his doing. He's too zapped to make an effort. 

Slowly, the sharp edge in her face softens just slightly. "He took one for the team, Boss. I'd call that teamwork. Wouldn't you?"

Peter nods. "I would."

"Then I say we're the winners this year." She does a fairly good job at hiding her smile, but Neal never misses much.

"Hey if you want to celebrate our victory, the Guggenheim has an exhibition on early impressionists- "  


"Don't push it, Caffrey."

 

~fin~

 

**Author's Note:**

> (I've only been to one Escape Room so most of this is my imagination's somewhat educated guess.)


End file.
